“Where is everyone?” This is the famous alien question that has resonated among our quiet galactic neighbors ever since Manhattan Project physicist Enrico Fermi asked it in 1950.
But even a supposedly highly developed extraterrestrial civilization lacks the resources and critical information needed to escape from its homeworld, at least according to a new study from Spain’s Atlantico Medio University. You might notice that.
Some so-called “super-Earths” may be within their star’s habitable zone, but are so massive that their gravity makes interplanetary rocket launches nearly impossible.
These and other “fishbowl worlds” are just one of several ideas introduced in a new paper, which is expected to help explain Enrico Fermi’s infamous 1950 “Fermi Paradox.” Masu.
The Fermi Paradox has puzzled astronomers for more than 60 years. Simply put, in a universe filled with 200 billion stars and even more planets, many of which can support life, why haven’t scientists on Earth discovered aliens?
Even highly developed alien civilizations may lack the resources and critical information they need to escape their homelands, according to research from Spain’s Atlantico Medio University.Above, Jupiter’s water moon Europa photographed by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.
“The image of a planet whose gravity makes it difficult or impossible to leave suggested to me the metaphor of a fishbowl,” Professor Elio Quiroga, author of the new study, told DailyMail in an email. com.
“I thought this was a powerful analogy,” said Quiroga, who lectures at Spain’s Atlantico Medio.
Professor Quiroga calculated a value for one category of fishbowl worlds, which he termed the “exoplanet escape coefficient” (Fex). This compares the escape velocity of a particular exoplanet to Earth’s 7 miles per second (11.19 kilometers per second). 2nd) Escape velocity.
Escape velocity, or the speed at which a spacecraft needs to escape the gravity of a celestial body such as the moon, a planet, or an asteroid, depends on the mass of that celestial body.
For example, escaping Proxima Centauri b, a potentially habitable exoplanet four light-years from Earth, would be relatively easy. Fex travels 5.9 miles per second, or just 0.85 times faster than Earth.
But planets that are massive but hypothesized to be habitable, such as Kepler-131 b, which is 746 light-years from Earth, require mind-boggling speeds to escape. For example, it takes 21.8 miles per second to exit Kepler 131 b, or 3.13 miles per second for Fex. twice the size of Earth.
Some so-called “super-Earths” may be within their star’s habitable zone, but their gravity makes interplanetary rocket launches difficult, such as Kepler-131 b (left), 746 light-years from Earth. Some are so huge that they are almost impossible. Others, like Proxima Centauri b (right),
“Many worlds, especially super-Earths, can be ignored because of their prohibitive escape velocities,” Professor Quiroga told DailyMail.com.
But there were also interesting edge cases, such as GJ-1214b, a habitable world 48 light-years from Earth that has an escape velocity about 1.5 times that of Earth.
Such planets, including Kepler-103b, may be difficult for advanced species to take off to, but they may not be able to trap species on their home planet.
Professor Quiroga’s research, published last October in the British Interplanetary Society journal, theorizes that FEX’s escape velocity, which is more than 2.2 times Earth’s, could permanently anchor civilizations to their planet of origin. It has become
The more than 5,000 exoplanets identified in our galaxy to date include a variety of types, including mysterious planets larger than our world and possibly rocky. “Super Earth” is also included.
But Quiroga also pointed to unique cultural factors that can trap species on their home planets, in one case discussing a more literal “fishbowl world.”
Advanced civilizations on ocean planets have mastered long-distance communications through their own evolution, given that communications naturally travel much farther in fluid environments (think sonar) than out in the open. He surmised that it might be.
The dominant species on watery planets, or watery moons like Jupiter’s moon Europa, may have enjoyed conversations that traveled naturally over hundreds of miles.
In those worlds, Professor Quiroga writes, “communication between individuals is possible without the need for communication devices,” and the urge to innovate advanced communication technologies is suppressed.
There were also interesting edge cases, like GJ-1214b (above), a habitable world 48 light-years from Earth. The escape velocity is 1.5 times his on Earth. Escape is difficult, but escape is possible.
“Even if a fully developed civilization might exist, telecommunications technology may never emerge in such a world,” Quiroga argued in his paper.
“Such a civilization would not be able to ‘communicate’ and would not be accounted for in the Drake Equation, a famous calculation formulated to predict the likelihood of discovering intelligent life in the universe,” Quiroga said. said.
In other words, innate, biological, and evolutionary features like undersea sonar may render them silent and unable to hear human SETI radio transmissions.
But, as Professor Quiroga told DailyMail.com, his research has not yet caused astronomers and planetary scientists to significantly change their policies or research plans.
“The first step is to look for basic life, simple life forms,” he said.
“We are making progress in this direction, but we need more advanced tools (such as the future Vera Rubin telescope) and improved methods to analyze the faint signals emanating from these exoplanets. is.”
Professor Quiroga said: “If we were to discover worlds in other star systems that showed clear and undisputed signs of intelligence, we would not know if these beings ever achieved space travel or if they did. “They will be able to reflect on whether it is within their capabilities.”
It remains to be seen what the first signs of success, which researchers call techno-signatures, will look like, but part of the reason may be that they are a sign of truly alien life that exists outside our world. He pointed out that this is a possibility.
“All we can say is that there is one civilization in the universe, and that is ours,” Professor Quiroga said.
As a result, we tend to humanize or anthropomorphize everything. It’s inevitable.”
“But there are some interesting things to consider,” he added.
“We emerged as a species more or less in the middle of the lifespan of our star, the Sun. This suggests something profound: the evolution of intelligence takes a considerable amount of time.”
Quiroga suggested that perhaps the answer to Enrico Fermi’s famous paradox is that most alien species take as long to evolve as life on Earth.